Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.
The recent volatility in lean hog futures — from fresh contract highs at the end of January to the dramatic early-February selloff — has many in the industry (and WPI clients) wondering what will happen next. WPI’s latest analysis indicates that while pork demand remains stron...
The start of 2026 has been the exact opposite of what dry bulk markets and traders expected at the end of 2025. Typically, the Lunar New Year and post-holiday demand lulls mean that Q1 freight rates are often the weakest of the year. This year, however, rates rallied sharply on unexpected deman...
A mostly bullish overnight session was not sustained, splitting the soy complex and wheat. Corn rallied late to avert a loss. The morning opened with USDA’s Export Sales report reflecting the turn by buyers to lower-cost sources. There was good volume trading corn and the soy complex, and...